IDBI Bank, UTI Bank, Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank on Wednesday came together to launch an independent shared automatic teller machine network, covering six million cardholders in 100 cities of India.

The country-wide common network is promoted under an independent brand name 'Cashnet' owned by Euronet Services India Limited, a subsidiary of Euronet Worldwide, a leader in electronic payment solutions.

Claimed to be India's first shared ATM network, Cashnet will cover the entire 1,300 ATMs network of the four founding member banks which constitute about one-third of the total card base and 15 per cent of the ATM base in the country.

Situated at Vashi in Navi Mumbai, Euronet's processing centre will connect each ATM centre of the participating bank for transaction processing and settlement.

While IDBI Bank will be the settlement bank, UTI Bank will act as the acquiring bank. Citibank and StanChart will be the issuer banks of the cards.

"We will very soon extend the network to over 2,500 ATMs following expected entry of four more banks to the network," said president and COO of Euronet Worldwide Daniel Henry.

The shared ATMs would not only extend the payment transaction facilities to a larger number of bank customers across the length and breadth of the country but also reduce the cost by about 25 per cent for the users.

However, it would all depend on the individual banks to pass on the reduced cost benefits to their customers and cardholders, he said.

The network will be implemented using Euronet's software powered by it's European operations centre for the past eight years, processing more than seven million transactions every month.

The platform will process ATM transactions and provide daily settlement between member banks. The transaction set includes cash withdrawal, balance inquiry, cheque book request and ATM mobile recharge, which enables consumers to purchase prepaid airtime for their mobile phone accounts from the ATM.

UNI